


Sillage

by ladywongs



Category: Tokyo Ghoul, Tokyo Ghoul:re
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Friendship, One-Sided Attraction, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-12-22 02:43:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11958051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladywongs/pseuds/ladywongs
Summary: Ayato is raw as he stands before her, and Hinami knows, above all things, that it isn’t just cute. It’s a fire.(+ Ayato&Hinami saying goodbye before he leaves to explore the 24th Ward)





	Sillage

**Author's Note:**

> this fic was heavily inspired by [this](http://lilacflamesss.tumblr.com/post/164252165547/i-literally-bought-this-entire-fucking-novel-for/) image ((*screams loudly*)) and the powerful curiosity in my body at wondering how Hinami would slowly start falling in love with Ayato, what things she could see in him that catches her attention, like finding out he’s not a kid anymore.
> 
> i also believe it’s a natural feeling for a teenager, i think we all forget that Hinami is still a teenager, and in that age your hormones are all over the place, so i really enjoyed exploring this side of her. There’s a final scene of both saying goodbye before he leaves to explore, so yes, keep reading for more of that ♡
> 
> ❀ also, “sillage”: (n) the impression made in space after something/someone has been and gone; the trace of someone’s perfume.

 

**.: Sillage :.**

  **—o—**

 

“Hinami.”

“Yes?”

“What is… extro — extravagant?”

It’s strange.

It’s very strange, Hinami realizes. The way that her body feels loaded with a particular sense of familiarity at the scene lying before her: a little girl frowning in frustration at the words she can’t understand, words way far bigger than anything she knows. Hinami sees herself in her, somehow, for not so long ago she was in the exact same place, standing in where she’s standing, asking the same questions with those same glossy eyes, the same innocent expression.

_Onii-chan, how do you read this?_

She feels proud that now she gets to do the same thing, to be in Onii-chan’s shoes.

He taught her well, after all.

“Extravagant?”

The little girl nods, leaning closer to show her the page in the book.

“Yes, look. ‘His blue hat was very extravagant’. What does it mean?”

Hinami’s fingers travel to her chin, thinking.

“Well… it’s when something is very rare or peculiar, something that catches everyone’s attention.”

The girl looks at her, confused.

“Like Mr. Tsukiyama?”

Hinami blurts out a giggle, nodding.

“Yes. Extravagant is a nice word to define him.”

“Oh, I see,” the child nods, flipping to the next page. “And what does this… oh.”

The girl stops, gasping with lungs that seem to freeze and cheeks that turn into a sheepish red. She closes the book, looking down, eyes flicking up occasionally to stare at something that haunts her in the distance, but she allows her bangs to cover her shame and takes one step back, forgetting about the odd words in the book.

Hinami frowns, noticing her strange behavior.

“What’s wrong?”

The child makes a grin, and gets closer to Hinami, grabbing her arm like a little bird trying to find protection under her mother’s wings.

“Ayato is there.”

Hinami flicks up her brows, surprised by her answer, and follows her sheepish stare to find out that, indeed, Ayato was a few meters away, having a discussion with Naki and Banjou-san. He doesn’t seem to pay any attention to them.

“Y-Yeah, he’s there. So?” she simply replies, and turns around to look at the child. “What is it?”

The girl sighs, frowning in frustration, and after giving Ayato one last look, she gets closer to Hinami and pulls her arm, trying to make her lean against her. The child flushes, placing her little hands around her ear, then she whispers softly:

“He’s very cute!”

Hinami blinks a couple times.

One, two, three…

Cute?

The seconds she spends staring down at her knees feel eternal. The little girl sighs, turning around to grab the book again but her words keep lingering inside Hinami’s head for a while. She doesn’t know it yet, but they will stay with her for quite some time.

Her eyes flick up to where Ayato is standing, with his hands jammed inside his pockets and offering an annoyed expression.

“C-Cute?” Hinami asks, frowning.

The little girl flushes again, getting closer and lowering the acute sound of her voice.

“Y-Yes!” she nods. “I think… he’s very c-cute. He snorts when he sleeps, I’ve heard him once, he sounds like a purring kitty. I… I think he could be a nice cat, since he likes high places a lot.”

The girl’s words overwhelm her as she nods, a sudden realization crashing against her being. She frowns, gasping.

“Y-Yeah… he does.”

He had always liked high places. That was one of the first things she’d learned about him when she joined Aogiri. The child continues on with her speech, feeling a little bit more confident now as she names a huge list of all the cute things she likes about Ayato, but Hinami’s ears feel numb as her lips, parting softly when her eyes fall on his presence again.

She studies him for a while, relishing in the sound of his voice, laughing ironically at something that Naki suggested. She eyes the pink plush of his lip, trapped between his teeth, and the way that he leans against the wall with evident boredom. He offers Banjou a guilty shrug of his shoulders, some locks of his hair falling on his eyes and making him look like a rebellious brat who would get into trouble pretty often. Hinami suddenly realizes how broad his shoulders have become.

W-Wait…

Ayato sighs again, driving his eyes away from his  _friends_  and gives one quick look to his surroundings, ignoring Banjou’s words, when suddenly his eyes fall on Hinami by accident.

Oh.

Her body stiffens when she realizes that Ayato is staring back at her, clearly confused by the fact that  _she_  was staring at him first. He frowns softly and his lips part momentarily, almost as if he’s trying to form a word despite the large distance between them. Hinami looks away almost immediately, blushing furiously.

What the heck.

Why is she even blushing?

She gets up, grabbing the book and taking the child’s hand.

“L-Let’s go somewhere else. I think I want a coffee,” she explains.

Hinami starts walking in the opposite direction, dragging a confused girl by the arm and forcing herself to not look back at him, even if she can still feel his gaze upon her.

_Calm down, dummy. It’s nothing._

But — seriously…

Have Ayato’s shoulders always been so broad?

**—o—**

“Miza.”

“What.”

“Do you think Nishiki is handsome?”

If Hinami could have taken a picture of Miza’s face after she asked such a question, she would have.

You see, Miza was a very professional individual, or at least that’s what Hinami always thought. Work was work, and any distraction that could prevent her from focusing on her task was almost like a blasphemy. But Hinami was young, too pure and young for this cruel world — and boredom and laziness were one of the few things that came with the unpleasant age… as for other things that she tried not to think about  _that_  much.

Organizing old boxes and papers were one of the many works they had to accomplish inside the 24th Ward, and today it was Hinami and Miza’s turn to clean up the mess, but Hinami wasn’t really helping and Miza was starting to get annoyed _especially_  after hearing that type of question.

“What?” She asks, gasping.

Hinami keeps looking at Nishiki in the distance, arguing with the kids for why he should not be called Mr. Four-Eyes. She tilts her face to one side, narrowing her eyes a little.

“If you have to rate him from 1 to 10, what would it be?”

Miza blurts out a deep sigh, carrying one of the boxes to the other side of the room.

“Are we really doing this? Get out of that desk and help me, would you?”

Hinami groans with laziness.

“Come on! I’m just really bored. It’s a fun game.”

Miza rolls her eyes, going back to her work.

“I don’t know, Hinami. A 4?”

She’s clearly shocked by her answer.

“What? A 4? Really?”

“Really,” Miza responds, sighing once she places the heavy box on top of another. “He’s not my type. How would you rate him?”

Hinami looks back at Nishiki, her legs swinging off the desk in where she’s sitting.

“Uh, probably an 8? He’s very good looking. What about onii-chan?”

Miza blurts out a laugh. She looks disgusted.

“O.”

Hinami laughs too. “What?”

“He looks creepy with those bags under his eyes, I don’t feel attached to zombies.”

“He looks very tired, that’s true, but it wasn’t always that way. Uh, I give him a 9.”

Miza doesn’t respond, and after evaluating the people around her, Hinami offers a soft smile, eyes landing on Miza’s concentrated face.

“What about Naki?”

Miza’s cheeks turn red as cherries, hands accidentally wrinkling the papers she’s holding.

“Naki?”

“Yup.”

“Uhh, I d-don’t know… a 9?”

Hinami giggles, and Miza frowns with irritation. “Why are you laughing!”

“You look very cute when you talk about him.”  

“I don’t.”

You look very cute.

_He’s very cute!_

Hinami’s smile vanishes away, and a throbbing heat inside her chest comes back to life again for the third time in almost two weeks. She swallows hard, feeling dizzy and worried and confused, especially confused. Ayato is not there to be rated by them, but Hinami decides to ask anyway.

She needs someone to guide her.

“And, uh… w-what about Ayato-kun?”

Miza doesn’t look at her, eyes checking some papers that aren’t needed anymore and throwing them into the trash can.

“Ayato?”

“Yeah…”

“I think I can be a little generous with him,” Miza explains, bending to grab a box from the floor. “Probably a 7. What about you?”

What about you, Hinami?

_He’s very cute!_

Hinami bites her lower lip, having an inner battle with herself. She never really thought of Ayato as… cute; it wasn’t exactly the first word that would come to her mind while thinking of him, or finding his eyes looking at her from the distance, or feeling his arm grabbing hers to lead her somewhere else, or the sound of his voice whispering her name, making it sound so different from how others pronounce it, so different from the way he pronounces other people’s names.

It wasn’t just cute, or tender, or gentle.

It was a fire.

Looking at Ayato was not like looking at onii-chan, or holding Touka’s hand, or being hugged by Banjou-san. It wasn’t just… cute. There was an inexplicable honesty about Ayato, an intensity that felt so raw and she can’t understand it, she can’t understand  _him_  and, at the same time, she feels like she can see deep into his heart. When Ayato looks at her, he l _ooks_  at her. He doesn’t dodge her eyes like he usually does with Touka-chan, he doesn’t look away in annoyance like he does with onii-chan, he doesn’t mock her like he does with Naki when he says something stupid.

Ayato is raw as he stands before her, and Hinami knows, above all things, that it isn’t just _cute._

It’s a fire.

“I…” she stammers, looking at her feet. “Uh, a 9? Or… I don’t know…”

To her surprise, Miza delivers a loud giggle.

“Sure you would.”

Hinami flushes, leaning closer to her.

“It’s just… have you heard what people call him now?” Hinami lowers her voice, like if she’s telling Miza a dangerous secret.   “They call him… Mr. Handsome…”

Miza smiles, plucking out a book from a box.

“I honestly thought you were the one who came up with that name.”

“W-What? No!” Hinami screams, terrified. “No, I didn’t! I… I think it was Nishiki, but I’m not sure.”

Miza shrugs.

“Well, it’s not like the name doesn’t suit him. He is indeed very handsome.”

Hinami takes a few deep breaths, bringing a hand down to her heart and caressing her chest with curious fingertips, an unusual beat coming out from within.

“You think so?” she asks in a whisper.

Miza gasps, frowning.

“You should know better, you’re always with him.”

You’re always with him.

Yeah…

She is.

**—o—**

One day, Hinami finds an old radio inside one of the dusty vacant cells. The radio was still working but a huge interference was getting in between Hinami and the music, and it seemed almost impossible to syntonize the right channel.

The kids were getting impatient too.

“Is it ever going to work?” Yuki asks, frowning in frustration.

Hinami places the radio on top of a chair, kneeling on the floor and approaching her skilled ears near the speaker as she rolls the knob in between her fingers, trying to syntonize the right channel.

“I don’t think so,” the other boy complaints. “Hinami says it’s very old.”

“We should ask the king if he can help us since he’s very powerful,” the little girl suggests, shrugging her delicate shoulders. “He has many superpowers.”

“The king doesn’t have super powers, dummy,” Yuki replies.

The girl crosses her arms over her chest, offended.

“Well, how do you know that? Maybe he  _does_  have super powers, he’s the one-eyed king after all.”

“I’ve heard that he can read minds,” the other boy adds.

“Minds?”

“Yeah, and see in the dark.”

“That’s stupid. No one could possibly do that, not even a ghoul.”

“Then ask him!” the girl yells.

“Why me? You ask him!”

“Shhh!” Hinami places her finger on her lips, trying to hush them. “I think I almost got it.”

The kids’ gasps in surprise, getting closer to Hinami until they’re all surrounding the radio, trying to hear something. They hear a woman singing in the distance, like someone who’s trying to sing underwater. They gasp again, excited, but just like that the syntonization cuts, welcoming again that unpleasant noise that Yuki says it sounds like a broken rain.

“No!” the little girl yells, almost about to bursts into tears.

Hinami sighs, frustrated.

“What are you doing?”

She blinks when she hears his voice.

They all look up to him, standing before them with his hands inside his pockets, looking bored and curious at the same time. Hinami’s heart gives an instant jerk, and for a moment she wonders if the sound of her heart is louder than the interference screaming on the radio.

“Hinami found an old radio but it doesn’t work!” the kids run to him, Yuki clinging to his arm and looking like a sad little puppy.

“A radio?” Ayato asks, looking down at the kids.

“We wanted to dance, please help us Mr. Handsome!”

Hinami bites back a smile.

“Jeez,” Ayato frowns, disgusted. “Call me that again and I’ll kick your lil butt, brat.”

The kids laugh in response, somehow finding amusing his—very inappropriate—choice of words. Hinami’s eyes flicker upwards to look at Ayato, she stares at him from where she’s kneeling, holding the radio in her hands.

“Can you help us?”

Her voice tickles him when she whispers that.

Ayato meets her gaze for a moment, swallowing, making a pause.

He nods.

He can’t say no to her.

Ayato starts walking towards her, the kids following him suit like tiny yellow ducks. Hinami hands him the radio, which he grabs, and leads to his ear to check out the sound. He frowns, not really knowing what to do, so he shakes the radio a couple times. Nothing happens. Then, out of an impulse, Ayato slams the radio against the chair, the sound vibrating around the area like a gunshot.

The kids scream, terrified, but instead of breaking the damn thing — it seems that Ayato has fixed it.

He fixed a stupid broken radio by slamming it against a chair. Something as simple as that.

The music starts playing, an old rock & roll song from the 60’s. There’s an utter, deep silence. No one makes one single noise. They stare at each other, wide-eyed, shocked, and then, suddenly, Hinami breaks. She starts laughing, grabbing her tummy and trying to cover her open mouth, all at the same time. And it’s amazing.

Amazing.

Ayato jumps at the sound, almost scared by the surprise, and a moment later the kids do the same. They laugh, jumping around in amusement.

“It works, it works!” they scream. “The radio works!”

Hinami smiles, getting up from the floor.

“Come on, kids, let’s dance.”

The kids wait for her to move first, trying to imitate her silly movements. She jumps like a bunny, then spins around in circles, then stiffens her body as she moves her arms sharply up and down. Ayato frowns, staying there like an idiot watching something that looks like a freak show. He can spot other ghouls from afar, laughing at the image that lies before them, an unusual sight inside the 24th Ward.

He almost feels embarrassed.

This could have never, never, never happened inside Aogiri.

Never.

A soft wave of realization comes to him.

_But this is not Aogiri._

He sighs. He can’t understand it.

“What the hell — what are you even doing, Hinami…”

She frowns at him.

“It’s the robot dance!” she explains, moving her arms up and down, her legs trying to give long and stiffed steps. “See?”

Ayato makes an awkward grin.

The… the  _what?_

“Let’s make a circle!” the little girl suggests.

Hinami smiles. “Yes!”

The kids and Hinami form a circle, all grabbing hands, and they start spinning around along with the music, laughing as Yuki yells that he’s feeling dizzy. They stop for a moment, and Hinami’s eyes fall on an awkward Ayato, his face looking like if he’s trying to solve a very difficult calculation.

But it’s so simple. So simple. And she’s always there to show him the simplest things, the smallest things, the prettiest things. The things that really matter.

“Let’s make a circle around Ayato-kun!” Hinami yells, giggling at the way Ayato blinks, confused, not really understanding her command.

“W-What — “

Hinami and the kids surround him, grabbing hands and trying to enclose him inside the circle. They jump around him, laughing at his confused expression.

“What the hell, s-stop it!” he screams.

Hinami laughs.

**—o—**

Weeks later, Ayato notices that the radio has become a very important part of Hinami. Whenever she went, the radio followed her like a shadow; playing a song that would make her lips hum, her fingers tap or her shoulders swing.

It also made her sleep, sometimes.

He’d found her in the _kitchen_ that day, sitting on a chair and resting her head on her arms on the table — a wrinkled book and a cup of cold coffee being her only company.

And the radio, playing a love song by her side.

 _What a sad person she is_  
All alone in this wide world  
What a pitiful person she is  
That a person like me is her only savior

Ayato sighs at the sight of her messy hair and tired face, wondering when was the last time that she’d enjoyed a proper night without nightmares. She confessed his fears to him before moving out to the 24th Ward; the nightmares about Cochlea, the nights she would wake up in the middle of darkness, almost believing that she was still locked up inside that cell, going insane with each passing day.

“You’re not there anymore,” he assured her once, looking at her straight in the eyes, a fire burning inside of him. “You will never go back to that place.”

And she believed him. She always believed him. But the Ward was a dark and cold place, and sometimes it felt like a huge, asphyxiating cell — even bigger than the one she had in Cochlea. He didn’t blame her for feeling this way.

In silence, Ayato takes the book, closing the pages and shoving it aside, allowing her arms to have more space on the table. Then, he takes off his jacket, resting it on her back, the fur hoodie warming up her head.

He pats her shoulder softly.

 _Baby, the seasons will change again in the streets_  
It doesn’t matter, leave me behind  
Ah, I am anxious all the time  
So be by my side and give me courage, always

_Baby I love you so bad_

**—o—**

He can hear the music of her wings flying in his direction before she starts climbing up the platform.

Ayato peers to one side, the sound of her footsteps coming closer and closer until he sees the top of her head popping out from the edge and he looks away, a soft smirk cursing through his lips.

Hinami takes a deep gasp after finally reaching the top and once she stands in there safe and sound, she arranges her long brown skirt and takes a sit by his side, her legs hanging off the edge.

“Hi,” she says cheerfully.

“Hey,” he replies in a low tone. “I thought you were helping Miza again.”

Hinami nods, feeling a little rebellious.

“I sneaked out.”  

He gives a proud smirk, one of his hands flying over to hold the back of his head.

“Good.”

Slowly, she stares at him. He’s quiet, and she doesn’t feel like disrupting the silence this time. She just feels like staring at hi, like she usually does. Staring at him while he thinks, the way his eyes travel around the area like the eyes of an eagle, always having everything under control—and maybe that’s one of the reasons for why she feels so safe around him; how his broad shoulders grow even wider as he exhales a large portion of air, letting it slip through his fingers like a song.

She stares at him more than she should. She knows it.

And she doesn’t care.

“You look like a cat.”

Ayato looks at her, frowning.

“Huh?”

“The kids,” she explains. “They say you look like a cat.”

“Why?”

“Because you like high places.”

His face looks like her explanation is not strong enough to make sense at all. He sighs. It’s child stuff after all.

“They like to put names to everything, huh?”

Hinami tilts her face to one side, ignoring his answer.

“Do you miss the outside?”

Ayato sighs again, shrugging dismissively.

“Sometimes. I miss the fresh air, I guess. Being on top of a building,” he can’t help but smile at the thought. Yeah, he probably does look like a cat. He peers down at her. “You?”

Hinami plants her eyes on him.

“I do, but it’s not…  _that_ bad down here. I still have some books to read and… well, we’re all together, right? That’s nice.”

Ayato only shrugs again, not giving anything more than a simple “yeah, I suppose.”

Another silence.

Ayato keeps his eyes on his knees, Hinami keeps her eyes on him, sideways, trying not to get caught. They share a silence, just as they shared more than she can count.

However, she can feel something strange in the air, and Ayato is kind enough to not make her wait too much. He speaks.

“Hina.”

“Yes?”

“We’re leaving soon.”

At first, she doesn’t quite understand what he’s talking about. She almost wants to laugh. Leaving? To where? And who is  _we?_  He and her? He and —

She stops her thoughts, coming to the realization that she probably, _probably_ knows.

Ayato doesn’t wait for her to ask anything else. He keeps explaining, almost as if he’s able to read her mind. She believes he has that ability now.

“The underground expedition, your half-assed onii-chan decided that he wanted me leading the group.”

Hinami frowns, unable to swallow, unable to think straight. She looks at him, waiting for some invitation, waiting for the chance to actually  _go_  with him, work together like they used to, to be his ears like so many times in the past. To smell the danger around him and be there to protect him.

Yet she knows she can’t.

The underground labyrinth is dangerous, way more dangerous than anything they’ve ever faced before. And she can’t still forget the wounds that he had to carry in his body after they left Cochlea; if it wasn’t because Banjou was there, Ayato now would be… he…

“When… when are you leaving? For how long?”

Ayato shrugs, somber.

“In a few days, I suppose. Kaneki doesn’t want to wait that much, he likes things quick,” he says, sounding bitter than ever. “It can be days, or weeks, I don’t know. It all depends on whatever we might find in there.”

“B-But…”

She stops, refraining her rebellious tongue, and Ayato looks at her. His expression softens, he’s looking at her in the same way that he did when she was crying the day Akira Mado woke up.

“Hinami,” he says, and her heart pounds with madness at the way he whispers her name. He’s definitely not making things easy here. “What’s wrong?”

You’re leaving.

That’s what is wrong.

“It’s just…” she stops, trying not to look straight into his eyes. “I… well, that place… that place is very — “

“Hey,” they’re very close, so it doesn’t take that much for him to crash his shoulder against her in a joking manner. The small contact sends shivers down her spine, and somehow she feels happy to know that she gets to see this side of him. The kind, tender Ayato she knows so well. “It’s fine, you don’t have to worry about me that mu — “

“I always worry about you.”

It comes in a hushed whisper, the small touch of her words caressing his heart.

Ayato grows quiet, very quiet. His eyes look sad and hollow, and so does hers, eyes that flutter as she blinks, like little the wings of a butterfly. Ayato swallows, looking down again, blurting out a deep sigh.

“I always worry about you too,” he responds, taking her by surprise. He feels nervous as his words leave his lips, he’s out of control and it’s fine, it’s  _fine_. He doesn’t really understand, it’s not something a man like him would be able to do, but that’s something he’s learned from the only person who makes him feel like he’s truly alive: you don’t have to understand  _everything_. “So, just… uh, just try not to get into trouble while I’m away, okay? I won’t be able to cover you up if you do.”

She gives a sad smile, the touch of his shoulder against her being more than just a comfort. It’s a need.

It’s a fire.

**—o—**

The day he’s leaving, Hinami realizes that she still has his fur jacket.

She’d found it lying on her back weeks ago after she woke up from an uncomfortable nap on the table. She searched for Ayato afterward, hands shaking at the smell of him still impregnated on her skin, but he was nowhere to be found, so she kept the jacket in her cell, waiting for the moment to give it back.

It appears that the moment is now.

She runs faster than the wind, holding the jacket in her arms as she spots Ayato and his group saying goodbye to Kaneki and Banjou, receiving their last orders. She finds Touka there, sitting in a corner.

“Ayato-kun!”

The sound of her voice makes him turn around almost immediately, forgetting that Kaneki is even there, talking to him. Their eyes meet, and she stops in front of him, panting, looking at the jacket.

“You…” she sighs, trying to recover. “Don’t forget your jacket.”

He looks down at the fabric, nodding like an idiot. The jacket was the last of his concerns, to be honest.

“Oh, right.”

Ayato takes the jacket, looking for the sleeve.

“Here, let me help you,” Hinami grabs the jacket and turns him around, grabbing his arms and getting them inside the sleeves. She can feel Kaneki’s gaze on them, staring at the unusual scene. She tries to ignore it. “There you go.”

Hinami turns him around again, arranging the hoodie around his neck.

“Don’t take it off,” she says, buttoning up the front of the jacket. “If you’re going underground… well, it’s gonna get colder.”

“Y-Yeah…” he stammers.

Hinami blushes when she hears Touka’s giggles coming out from the corner in where she’s sitting.

“Is she your mother now?” she mocks.

Ayato turns around, blushing even harder than her.

“S-Shut up!” he yells. He returns his attention to Hinami, trying to ignore his sister’s presence. “Yeah, s-sure, you too. I mean, be careful with… the, uh… cold and everything.”

Hinami smiles softly, nodding.

“Okay.”

“Right.”

“Well…” she looks down, taking a deep sigh. “I’ll see you soon.”

I hope so.

Ayato doesn’t give a quick answer. He takes his mask, the one that covers his mouth, and puts it on. Hinami flicks up her eyes at him once he’s done, and although she can’t see his mouth, his eyes smile at her.

He’s smiling at her.

“I’ll see you soon, Hina,” he speaks behind the mask.

Then, he turns around. He walks, and walks, and walks, receiving a nod from Kaneki, a tender pat on his shoulder from Touka. Hinami stands dumbfounded, staring at Ayato’s back, the way that his jacket waves with the wind that comes from the tunnel he’s about to enter, the way that his eyes breathe fire, determination taking over his features.

Her eyes get glossy, she can’t help it. Hinami purses her lips, clenching her fists and she wants to say his name one more time, just before he leaves. Just one more time.

“Ayat…”

He enters the tunnel, his shadow blending into the darkness as his team follows him faithfully.

Hinami swallows his name, keeping it safe in her heart so when he returns, she can say it again.

Ayato-kun. Ayato-kun.  _Ayato-kun._

Please come back soon.

 


End file.
